Photograph by: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Chartrand
, Postmedia News

OTTAWA – Sen. Mike Duffy billed the Senate for $65,000 to pay a friend who allegedly provided “no tangible work” for the embattled Prince Edward Island senator, the RCMP allege in a new court document.

The document, filed Tuesday in Ottawa, lays out new allegations of misspending against Duffy, and seeks banking information of Gerald Donohue, who investigators say is a long-time friend of Duffy.

The new allegations stem from an investigation of Duffy’s travel and housing expenses, which the court documents say has now been expanded to include his office spending. In that funding envelope was about $65,000 over a four-year period to Donohue “for little or no apparent work.”

Police have interviewed Donohue and he “acknowledged that he produced no tangible work product for Duffy,” Cpl. Greg Horton, the lead investigator, writes in the document.

“A public official is expected to spend taxpayer’s money in a a transparent and responsible manner. Based on the facts … I believe that Senator Duffy, in his role as Canadian senator, breached the standard of responsibility and conduct demanded and expected of him as a person in a position of public trust,” Horton writes. “He used his office for a dishonest purpose, other than the public good. In doing so, he committed Breach of Trust and Fraud.”

The document also makes reference to a Feb. 20 email between Duffy and Nigel Wright, then Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff, in which Duffy allegedly talks about altering his Senate electronic calendar to redact, change or add information, including “pics of my cottage under construction.”

The document goes on to say that Wright provided the RCMP with a printout of Duffy’s electronic calendar as part of hundreds of pages provided to them over the summer.